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Someone once said, “Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” What a profound statement that is, isn’t it? We have choices throughout life, and each choice comes with a consequence. Sometimes the consequence is positive and sometimes the consequence is negative. In my life, it seemed like I made more bad choices than I made good choices.
But I am getting ahead of myself! First things first, my name is John Gorman an adopted son of the Living God. I believe I have been called by God to disciple and minister to men who are incarcerated. Those in prison, by definition, are not “free”. They are confined by walls and bars and are not free to do as they please. What God has called me to do is to bring a message of freedom, hope, love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to those men. To show them that, although they are in prison, they can be free in Jesus Christ.
It was November 1993, and I was facing a 20- to 50- year prison sentence for dealing cocaine. “How did I get here?”, “How was I going to get out of this situation?” were questions running through my mind. I was scared to death. The last thing I wanted to do was to go to prison, but that is exactly what happened.
I was raised on the southeast side of Indianapolis, Indiana. I had a good life until I was 7 years old. At that critical age my parents divorced. At that time my mom went back to work as a nurse. She worked second shift which meant that she was gone in the evenings, leaving six kids with a sitter. My dad disappeared for about 5 years and had no contact with us. He then reappeared in my life but things were never the same.
As I grew up I was introduced to alcohol. I took my first drink when I was at a freshman dance. I proceeded to get drunk and then got very sick. Yet, that didn’t stop me from drinking. I continued to drink all through high school. As a kid who comes from a broken home I look back on that time and realize I was just trying to fit in, so the other kids would accepted me, but I was also trying to ease the pain of losing my family.
Drinking led me to other drugs; I experimented with marijuana during that time as well. The catalyst for that was in 1972 my mother was diagnosed with bone cancer. She got very sick with the disease and it was painful to see her in this condition. To ease that pain I began abusing marijuana. She died in the spring of 1973. The day of her funeral, at the age of 17, my dad handed me a fifth of Canadian Club and said, “You need this.” I was a senior in high school at that time, and my dad’s best advice he could give me was, “ Drink this booze -it will help you cope!” I don’t recommend that kind of “advice!”
In 1975, two years after graduating from high school, I joined the Navy. My plan was to go play baseball at a local college but I couldn’t afford the tuition so I entered the workforce to make money. Unfortunately, I was laid off and while looking at my options I decided to enlist in the Navy, and then go to school on the GI Bill. It was during my time in the Navy that I got really good at staying drunk and doing drugs. My life at that time was filled with alcohol induced brawls, womanizing and the like. It was a very dark time in my journey. During that time, I was introduced to cocaine, and from day one it became my drug of choice. I abused cocaine almost everyday and convinced myself it was ok. During those years I met a woman, a partying buddy really, and we got married, basically, because we partied well together. For the next 7 years that is what we did. Our relationship ended when she began having an affair with another man. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Holy Spirit was already calling out to me. What I mean is, I wanted to get out of partying, I knew I was missing something in my life, I just didn’t know what.
After the divorce I continued to party and began selling drugs. In my late 20’s, through the help of a great counselor, I regained memories of the sexual abuse I had sustained by a family member at a very young age. But I was 6′ 3” and over 230 lbs, so how could that affect me? Every decision that I had made since I was four years old was directly affected by the abuse. I realized that the drug and alcohol abuse was a means to anesthetize the effect of the molestations.
Then the day came in 1993, while doing cocaine and boozing it up, I was accused of possession with the intent of distribution. Because of a lifetime of bad choices, a lifetime of doing drugs, I was looking down the barrel of a non-suspendable prison sentence. I made, what I like to call, a foxhole prayer, it went something like this, “Lord, get me out of this mess, and I’ll serve you!” I can’t explain how or why God answered this prayer but somehow, by His grace I was released on bond and awaited my trial. True to my promise, I started attending a local Christian Church. The first Sunday I was there, the minister preached a sermon that was reading, like a diary of my life. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit nudging me. The following week, he preached a message that, again, was completely speaking to me. As a matter of fact; I even accused my friend of calling the pastor and telling him my story! The Holy Spirit was still calling me, yet I still did not see it. Sometimes, we can’t see the things that are right in front of us.
As my trial approached, I prayed I would not go to jail, and not go to trial. Once again, I can’t explain how or why God answered this prayer but somehow, by His grace, and through some fancy attorney moves, I got just what I prayed for. My sentence was reduced to probation and home detention.
I continued to attend church. I began helping out in the youth area as a helper, and I was so impressed with how well the teacher knew Scripture, I prayed that I would learn Scripture, so I could teach, using my past for God’s glory. Be careful what you pray for, by the way!
Unfortunately, even while attending church and being on probation, I couldn’t shake the old habits. 1Corinthians 15:33 says, “Therefore, do not be misled, bad company corrupts good character”. While serving out my home detention, I allowed a couple of “friends” to come over to my apartment to party, and they stayed for two days, all of us abusing alcohol and drugs. Shortly after this, I was called in by my probation officer to do a drug screen. Yeah, you guess it; I failed, yet for some reason they let me remain free. You would think after all this, I would have stopped doing drugs, but two months after this incident, for the second time, I broke my probation and tested positive for cocaine. Because of this, I was sent to the Department of Corrections.
The entire time I was being processed, I kept thinking, “I am not a criminal, not like these other guys in here,” but they put me in a cell and shut the door on me. It was a rude awakening for me.
Scared and alone, I began to read the Bible. I read the entire Bible twice and the New Testament about 15 times my first 45 days behind bars. I gave my life over to Jesus. Like Paul, I was on house arrest and then sent to prison. The Holy Spirit spoke to my spirit through Paul’s words. I was able to explain Scripture to the other inmates. What the judge meant for bad, God meant for good. The Lord used me in a powerful way during my incarceration, as I held a Bible study and led another inmate to Christ. He also healed me from drugs and alcoholism while I was in prison. I had to humble myself and truly repent of my past life.
After I was released from prison, I was fortunate to have ministers from my church that opened their homes to me, to have a place to stay and get back on my feet. I was making a very deliberate decision to safeguard my recovery and re-entry into society. My church welcomed me back with open arms. They could see I had truly repented and was now a new creation in Christ.
After a time of re-entry and recovery, I desired to have a godly woman in my life and prayed that God would send her to me on a silver platter. Some months later, as I walked into the church gym one day, I saw Becky, lying on the floor in the middle of an 18 X 12 foot silver banner. (What a sense of humor God has!) I asked her out, (as this Divine appointment had to be from God, right?) She said, “No”, however, and told me that she was dating Jesus and had made a 6 month commitment to Him. We began to date when she was through with her time commitment to the Lord, and in February of 1998, we were married.
Becky and I have been blessed over the last 15 years. We taught our 5th and 6TH grade Sunday School for 12 years. We know those kids love us and have learned from us. We always taught straight from God’s Word, using our own life situations as examples, and even had our class memorize Colossians 3:1-17 (Rules for Holy Living) every single year.
For the past 8 years, I’ve attended an event called Indiana Outpost Boot Camp, a men’s event put on by a ministry called Mission Uprising. The event is twice a year and is based on the book “Wild at Heart” by John Eldridge. The idea centers on setting men’s hearts free so they can pursue God and their wives and families with passion. It is also based on the idea that only another man can ask the questions to get a man to those places he needs to go for true freedom in Christ, as it says in Proverbs 27:17 “As Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
For the last five or six years, I have thought a lot about full-time ministry, but mentally, I always quickly dismissed the idea, because I had not had the formal training, or that I could not get any support; that I may not be effective. I now realize that all of that was a lie from Satan. He does not want me in the mission field.
After an Outpost boot camp three years ago, I was challenged by one of the guys. He said, “John, your passion for Christ is setting men free – why are you not in full-time Ministry.” The Lord spoke to my heart after that question, as I have been sitting at His feet, waiting patiently for well over a year, to know what His purpose and plan is for me. I thought back to when I was happiest and felt most fulfilled was when I was and am ministering to someone who needed to hear about how Jesus had worked in my life – not that I can boast – but only to his glory.
I spoke with my senior pastor, Gary Johnson, our former mission’s minister, Chris Alexander, and Mike Rasmussen, (from the Mission Uprising), and I asked them to tell me what they saw my dream/vision of ministry would be. They all spoke to my heart and affirmed God’s call on my life. This call has been affirmed many times as I’ve gathered information and advice from many other Christian men and mentors – It is Prison Ministry. For the past 2 ½ years I’ve been mentoring at the reentry facility in Indianapolis, and just weeks ago said goodbye to my mentee who was released. I have two new mentees I’ve just begun mentoring and am excited to see what God will do. I am finally on the road to serving God in what he has clearly called me to do. To set men free in the Lord by using my life experiences, to minister to them and show them the freedom that comes from knowing Jesus. God has revealed to me that He wants me in full-time Ministry for his Kingdom. More than anything else, for my life, I want God’s will to be done – nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.